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Thinking About a Kitchen Island

I have a relatively large kitchen. The counter space is not the best, but we make the most of what we've got. I was thinking about getting a kitchen island that can be moved to add some storage and work space. It's kind of a large purchase so I want to be sure about it. It's either the island or a nice steel wire rack against a wall to increase the storage space no but the work space.

Anyone have good or bad experiences with kitchen islands? Any recommended models?

Re: Thinking About a Kitchen Island

I am not a fan of them, myself.

Something to think about, if you're going to move the island around, it will have to be small to keep the weight down, which could make the size fairly useless. Also, will your flooring hold up to the pinpoint weight loading that casters would apply, much less to the movement of the table?

I suffer from CDO ... Its like OCD, but in alphabetical order, LIKE IT SHOULD BE!!!

Re: Thinking About a Kitchen Island

We had a similar situation and built our custom island ourselves shown here: http://www.condoman.us/142GLB/data/i...BUpdated-9.JPG We choose our own design because we could not find anything that matched our requirements. We were able to incorporate some shelf space on the outside with doors that close over this space. The design included a deep rolling drawer for recycle baskets, room for four drawers and a custom cut butcher block top. We choose to fix the island in place and wire from the basement below with a GFCI supply.

The area where the island sits was masked off with blue tape for a few days to see how the size would work for us. Because of the finished size it was constructed in two parts and assembled in place as it would not fit through the doorways.

Re: Thinking About a Kitchen Island

Originally Posted by Condoman

We had a similar situation and built our custom island ourselves shown here: We choose our own design because we could not find anything that matched our requirements. We were able to incorporate some shelf space on the outside with doors that close over this space. The design included a deep rolling drawer for recycle baskets, room for four drawers and a custom cut butcher block top. We choose to fix the island in place and wire from the basement below with a GFCI supply.

The area where the island sits was masked off with blue tape for a few days to see how the size would work for us. Because of the finished size it was constructed in two parts and assembled in place as it would not fit through the doorways.

That looks really great. Thanks for sharing. I love the idea of adding outlets to the kitchen. That is extremely practical and inspiring. I'll be doing some more research to see if that is something we might benefit from. Thanks again.

Re: Thinking About a Kitchen Island

We built a new kitchen in our new addition in 2009. We wanted an island since we had a large space and needed more storage and a prep area since we were limited in our design of the rest of the kitchen. We just finished the island last year which completed that portion of the addition.

We built a 7' x 7' island which has a small copper prep sink on one end and on opposite sides, we added two Mocket pull up electrical fixtures (they just plug into an electrical outlet under the granite). We were able to build in 4 large drawers, one with a mini tray to hold our entire spice rack. We put in a paper towel holder which is covered by a drawer front, and a narrow slide pull out for dish towels. We had one large opening next to the sink, so we put in a large roll out drawer that has two big recycle bins and a large garbage can with an automatic lid. We were also able to put a garbage disposal in the prep sink, and added a air button. The cabinet underneath has just enough room for a few clean up items.

Overall, we found the stationary island or continent since its so large, is where everyone congregates and it gives us more space for crock pots, margarita maker, buffet set ups, etc.

The one thing we made sure was to leave enough room between the island and the rest of the kitchen cabinets and counter tops. It works great and we wouldn't change a thing.

We rented a house on the coast last summer and it had one of the roll around stainless steel islands. It worked great in the small kitchen, but it was a chore to keep everything clean since its wide open. If we had a smaller kitchen, we would have considered something like the cart, but would not go with a butcher block one. Been there, done that before.